Improbable Cause
by EstellaDoreaBlack
Summary: A serial killer terrorizes New York City, and the answer to the case may lie in a fifty-year-old crime and the family it nearly destroyed. Sequel to When You Need Me Most and The Best-Laid Plans.
1. Chapter One: Mistaken

**Improbable Cause**

**Disclaimer: **If you recognize it, it's not mine.

**This fic is rated T for mentions of rape and murder (nothing graphic, which is why it's not an M). If you don't like it, don't read it.**

**This story is a sequel to **_**When You Need Me Most **_**and **_**The Best-Laid Plans. **_**I highly recommend you read those first.**

**_**Chapter One: Mistaken  
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Caitlyn Marcus self-consciously looked around before she stepped onto the street. She knew people found it strange, but in the eight months since she'd left her violently abusive husband, she'd learned these necessary survival skills. The counselors at the women's shelter had all assured her that this was normal, that she'd be looking over her shoulder for _him_ for a while. She hated it, but it wasn't like she had much say in the matter.

Then a hand grabbed hold of her shoulder, and she felt something hard pushed into her back. "Don't turn around. Scream and it'll be the last sound you ever make, got that?"

She nodded, trying not to panic. She'd been so worried about what her ex might do, she hadn't been thinking about random strangers being a potential danger.

"Where's your car?"

"On the street. Half a block."

"Walk to it. And I can pull this trigger faster than you can get away, so don't even try it."

She walked there, numbly, on autopilot. She stopped beside it.

"This is it?" he asked, jabbing her in the back with the gun.

"Y-yes."

"Get out your keys. Slowly. Now unlock the front passenger's door."

She pressed the button and the lights flashed. She waited for his next instruction, but he just shoved the gun into her back again. "I said unlock it!"

"I - I did," she whispered, now even more frightened. "Look, I'll - I'll open the front door, okay?" She pulled open the front passenger's door.

"All right, now get in." He shoved her into the front seat. "Give me the keys."

She handed them over silently. He slammed the door, locking it with the manual lock from the outside, and keeping his gun trained on her as he walked around to the driver's side. "Hello, Margaret. Know who I am now?"

"My name's not Margaret," she whispered.

He hit her over the head with the butt of his gun. "You don't think I'd know you? You owe me, Margaret. You emasculated me, you humiliated me. You were my wife; you were supposed to submit to me. Now I'm going to take what you owe me."

xxxxxxxxx

The strange man stood over Caitlyn's battered, abused body. She stared up at him, barely able to comprehend what was going on, even after the years of abuse she'd suffered. She didn't even know this man, and he was behaving like her ex in one of his worst rages.

"It's been fun, Margaret," he said in a whisper that sent shivers up her spine. "But it can't go on forever. You'll never stay with me, and if I can't have you, no one can."

She heard the gunshots as if they came from some faraway place, and she felt the bullets strike her body. _I've been shot_, she realized.

It was her last thought before oblivion took over.

**Yes, I borrowed a large part of this dialogue from _The Best-Laid Plans._ I'm not being lazy, I'm doing it for a very specific reason.**

**Sorry for not actually having this up for as soon as people were finished with _The Best-Laid Plans_. I had everything ready to go and I hit a glitch in the "New Story" system, so I had to wait for it to fix and then try again.**

**Please Review.**


	2. Chapter Two: The Template

**Improbable Cause**

**Disclaimer: **If you recognize it, it's not mine.

**_**Chapter Two: The Template**_**

"Same guy?"

Goren looked over his shoulder from where he was crouched on the ground, examining the body. "Looks that way," he told his partner. "And we're down to eight days between victims."

"If the same timeline holds for this one, that means six days between when he killed the last victim and when he snatched this one." They'd established that all the victims had gone missing about two days before the bodies were found.

Goren nodded. "We started with almost three weeks between when one body was found and the next woman went missing. We're on victim number five and we're down to under a week. Whoever this guy is, he's escalating and fast."

"Victim have ID?"

"Caitlyn Marcus," one of the CSU techs offered. "Thirty-one. And we found this."

Eames took the card he was holding out. "A card from a battered women's shelter."

"Those places usually have private security," Goren commented. "If someone has been stalking her, it's possible someone saw him hanging around."

"God, let's hope. Who knows how long we have before he takes his next victim?"

xxxxxxxxx

"You okay?" Eames asked her partner as he sat in the passenger's seat, deep in concentration.

"I can't figure this guy out," Goren replied softly. "We should have caught him by now. He's careless. He's left DNA in all the victims and he even got caught on an ATM security camera kidnapping one, for God's sake. And yet, he's a ghost. We can't get so much as a whiff of a lead on who he is or how to catch him. None of the victims are connected to each other in any way, except that they all have similar physical characteristics."

"Don't most serial killers choose their victims at apparent random?" she pointed out.

"In all the time I've worked on the police force, and all the time before that I spent studying with Declan, I've never come across a serial killer who was so sloppy. Not to mention, this guy has no distinctive signature. It doesn't make sense. Nothing about this case makes sense."

"We're here." Eames pulled into a parking space and clipped her badge to her jacket. "Come on, let's do the interview. You can wrack your brain for the missing clues later."

xxxxxxxxx

The receptionist led them to an office and tapped on the door. "Police. They're here about Caitlyn Marcus."

"Send them in," a woman's voice replied.

Goren and Eames had shown the photo from the third victim's abduction, the one where the perpetrator had been caught on ATM camera, to every security guard on duty. No one remembered seeing him. They weren't hopeful that the shelter administrator would know more, but they couldn't afford to make any assumptions.

The woman inside the office was in her early fifties by the looks of her, sitting on the couch. She stood when they came in. "Detectives. I'm Alaina McIntyre."

"Detective Robert Goren, and my partner Detective Alex Eames."

"Have you been aware of any issues with Caitlyn lately?" Eames asked.

"Everyone who lives at this shelter has issues," she replied. "But Caitlyn in particular, no. She left her husband almost a year ago, and it's been months since he came looking for her or tried to send her something. We were hopeful that we could transition her out of the shelter in the next month or two."

"Her husband came looking for her?" Eames pressed.

"If I called the police every time that happened, I'd never have time to do anything else," she replied. "I know it seems strange to you, but abusers can do what they do because they find ways to convince women not to leave or to come back time and time again. Short of what happened to Caitlyn, the worst days of this job are the days when we lose a resident back to an abusive home. Caitlyn stayed. She even managed to get up the courage to go to court and get a restraining order. He tried to come by anyway, but after he spent a few nights in jail for violating the order, he gave up."

"Have you ever seen this man around?" Goren asked, pulling the photo from his binder.

They'd expected her to give the same regretful shake of her head as the countless guards they'd shown the photo to. Instead, she looked for a few seconds and her jaw dropped. "My God."

"You have seen him?" Eames asked, feeling her heart quicken. _Could we finally have caught a break?_

"Not around here. Hang on." She pulled open her desk drawer and began digging through some papers. "Got it." She stood back up. "Here."

What she pushed into his hand was a photo that had clearly been ripped in half and taped back together. Goren was as shocked as the woman had been when he got a look. "Eames, look at this."

She stepped up next to him and he held it down so she could see without straining. The photo depicted two people, and Eames instantly knew what had hit her partner. "That woman fits the victim profile to a T," she said in shock. "And the man - if he put on about forty years..."

"Fifty-five."

Both detectives turned to look at her. "What?"

"That picture was taken in 1952. It's from my mother's first wedding."

"This man is...your father?" Goren asked, his voice heavy with something Eames couldn't identify.

"No," she said firmly. "My mother divorced Donald after three months because he abused her. Two years later, he tracked her down and tried to kill her." Her voice went soft. "I didn't know about any of this until one day when I was helping my mom clean. She found that picture and just fell apart. Ripped it in half and then fell on the floor crying. I had to get my dad to calm her down. I was sixteen. Once she calmed down, they told me about Donald. I hadn't even know she was married before Dad."

"You saved the picture?" Goren asked curiously.

She nodded. "I hid it from my mother. For her, all it was was a reminder of the worst day of her life. But after I heard what happened to her, I decided I wanted to spend my life helping people who'd been through what she had. I keep the picture to remind myself of why I do this."

Goren flipped his binder open. "What was your mother's name?"

"Margaret Houlihan." She spelled the last name. As he wrote it down, Eames saw a light go on in his eyes.

"And where did the crime take place?"

"Maine. Portland area."

"Date?"

"September 14th, 1954."

"Thank you, Mrs. McIntyre," he said, closing the binder again. "We'll be in touch."

"Detectives?"

They turned back. "Yes?"

"Please catch this man. He never paid for what he did to her; at least make him pay for Caitlyn and the others."

xxxxxxxxx

"Portland, Maine PD faxed this over," Ross informed the partners as they walked into the squad room, holding a stack of papers. "Why are we looking into a fifty-three-year-old case from a different jurisdiction?"

Goren took the file, glancing through the case summary, and then began to read aloud in explanation. "Victim Margaret Houlihan was abducted at gunpoint from the parking lot of the Crabapple Cove clinic, forced into her own car. Two days later she was brought into the emergency room at Portland General Hospital with six gunshot wounds. According to Lisa and Carl Garrison, she flagged their car down from the side of the road. She told Mrs. Garrison her name and that she'd been shot before becoming incoherent. When she regained consciousness after surgery, she identified her attacker as US Army Lieutenant Colonel Donald Penobscott."

"A witness today identified the man in the ATM photo as the same man," Eames picked up. "We may be looking at another victim of the same streak."

"Fifty years ago, with no crimes between now and then?" Ross still seemed skeptical. "In any case, there's no mention of a rape in the file."

"Doesn't necessarily mean it didn't happen," she countered. "At the time this happened, women had every reason _not_ to report rape. For a rape victim, this case would have been better than most because the perp would still go down for something. It was a different time."

"Yes," Goren said suddenly. "It _was_ a different time."

"I can hear you thinking, Detective," Ross pressed. "What is it?"

"Something that was bothering me earlier." He began to pace. "What you said about fifty years between the crimes - what if he doesn't realize it's _been_ fifty years? He'd have to be almost eighty by now; what if he's losing his memory? He _is_ being careful not to be caught, just by the standards of a different time, a time before security cameras and DNA matching. And the lack of signature - in his mind, he's not committing a series of crimes, he's committing the _same_ crime over and over again." He tapped the file in his hand. "This is the template. Fifty years or no, we need to start here. Talk to anyone involved with this case who's still alive." His face grew grim. "That includes the victim."

"You really think that's a good idea?" Ross' face was grim too. "For her, that was fifty years ago. Do we really have to dredge all that up again?"

"Unfortunately, I think we have to," Eames replied. "Goren's right. ATM camera aside, she's the only living witness who can place him at the scene of any one of those crimes."

"I may know someone," Goren offered softly. "Someone who can help smooth the way in."

**I know this is a little short, but I need to change gears for the next chapter so I'm cutting it here.**

**A note on timeline: this story takes place in 2007, early Season 7 of CI, after _Amends_ but before _Untethered._ Think of it as one of the cases Goren and Eames were working during the episodes that featured the other pair.**

**Please review.**


	3. Chapter Three: The Doctor Is In

**Improbable Cause**

**Disclaimer: **If you recognize it, it's not mine.

**_**Chapter Three: The Doctor Is In**_**

_Carmel Ridge Long-Term Care Center, 2006_

The facility staff all looked up and smiled. Anyone who worked at Carmel Ridge for any period of time got to know this man. Most residents were lucky if their families visited on Christmas and their birthdays; this man drove up faithfully every week.

The man fixed his eyes on one person in particular. "Dr. Shimo."

"Bobby! You look like you're doing well."

"How's my mother doing?" He'd always been concerned with her welfare, but after she'd been terrorized by one of Judge Garrett's minions, his worry had tripled.

"Actually, very well. I think she's finally moving past what happened last year. There's a visiting doctor who's been working with her and some of the other patients."

"How's she taking that?"

"Surprisingly well, actually. I think she likes him. He's in with her now; you can see for yourself."

Bobby slowly pushed the door open, rather tentatively all the same, and was greeted with a sound it took him several moments to recognize. His mother was laughing.

So was the man sitting across from her. He was an older man, probably about her age, with graying curly hair. He looked up when the door opened. She clearly noticed, because her eyes followed his, and her face lit up when she saw who was there. "Bobby!"

"Hi, mom." He reached out and hugged her. She kissed him on the top of the head; for a few moments, he could almost pretend that the mother-son relationship between them was normal. "Who's your friend?"

"Bobby, this is Doctor Freedman. Wouldn't you know, he's lived practically his whole life in New York, just like you, and like me before I came here. We've been having quite a chat about the old times."

"Frances, your son drove all the way up here to see you," Freedman said gently. "Why don't you two spend some time together? I'll be around plenty."

xxxxxxxxx

Bobby walked into the cafeteria, intending to grab a cup of coffee before hitting the road, and was surprised to see the unfamiliar doctor who his mother had taken to sitting there. "I didn't expect you to still be here."

"I didn't expect me to still be here," he replied ruefully. "My car broke down."

"Is there anything I can do to help?" he offered, a little shyly.

"I've already called a tow truck," he replied, "and my son is coming up here to give me a ride back to the city. All I'm doing now is waiting. But I appreciate the offer."

"I could wait with you," he offered.

"I know how long of a drive you have," the older man replied. "I don't want to keep you."

"I don't mind," he replied. "I'm curious about you, Doctor Freedman."

"Sidney. And I admit, I'm curious about you too."

"How's that?"

He smiled, a little abashed. "When your mother said her son was coming to visit, I honestly thought it was some kind of delusion. So many people in her condition don't have anyone."

"She likes you," Bobby replied softly. "She usually doesn't like strange doctors. But you - you made her think of you as her friend first."

He shrugged a shoulder. "Sometimes it works that way, Bobby. I'm sorry," he added quickly. "I'm sure your mother is the only person who still calls you that."

"No, actually, most people call me that, I don't mind if you do." He laughed a little but quickly grew serious. "Do you mind if I ask you - what, exactly, do you think you can do for my mother? It's not that I don't appreciate your efforts," he rushed to assure the other man, "but her condition's fairly advanced, and I -"

"You're wondering what I think I'm going to pick up on that other doctors haven't already tried."

"In so many words, yes."

"Don't be ashamed to ask, I like that you're taking an interest and I don't have a problem with the question. It's actually a theory I've been working on for awhile now. I think it's possible that the onset of her condition was triggered by a real experience."

"Really?" the detective asked, intrigued.

"I'm not saying I can cure her condition," the man hastened to explain. "I don't want to get your hopes up. Unless they discover some miracle cure, she'll always be schizophrenic. But in some cases, someone who's already predisposed to mental illness can get a bit of a push from something that happens to them, something that's so traumatic that they push it out of their conscious memory, but it's still there, informing the subconscious. After talking with your mother and her doctors, I think that may be the case for her."

"If you're right, what next?" Bobby asked. "What changes?"

"A lot of your mother's delusions are based on the idea that someone is coming to hurt her. I think it's possible, and not even improbable, that at some point in her past, someone did hurt her. In order to treat her -" he paused, sighing deeply. "I know this may be hard to comprehend, but I would have to force the memory of the trauma back into her conscious mind. In the short term, I'm sorry, but it is going to be painful. But once she's aware of exactly what happened to her and when, she can get the help she needs to deal with her trauma and move on. And by solidifying exactly what it is she's afraid of, we may be able to help her be less afraid that every stranger she comes into contact with will hurt her."

"You sound like you've done this before," Bobby commented.

"Not this exactly, but something similar. I've spent a large portion of my life working with combat veterans. Without going into specifics, I've seen soldiers who blocked their entire memories of their lives, or who subconsciously convinced themselves they were other people, but I've also seen cases - there's one in particular I always think of when I think of this - where they repressed specific horrors they'd seen, only for the subconscious memory of those horrors to create a ripple effect that causes bizarre and apparently inexplicable behavior. In recent years, I realized I could use some of that to help people in other situations suffering from the same set of symptoms."

"Can I - can I ask a personal question?" At Sidney's nod, he continued. "What got you interested in working with veterans? It seems like an especially difficult specialty."

"It is," Sidney replied, "but the reason for that is that those soldiers have often seen things other patients can't imagine. I admit, my interest was grudging at first - I was drafted by the US Army to work as a psychiatrist with their soldiers, and I didn't want to be there at all. But after the war, I came home and tried to pick up my private practice, and so much of what I was seeing seemed so trivial compared to what I saw over there. I know, of course, that it's significant to each person, and I don't mean to dismiss that in any way, but I realized that anyone could help these people, and not just anyone could help the kinds of people I'd treated in Korea."

"You were in Korea?" Bobby asked, the mention piquing his interest despite its offhandedness. "Where?"

"All over, really. I did a lot of field work with different units. I did seem to keep coming back to a particular unit in Uijeongbu - you probably have no idea where that is," he quickly added. "It's not exactly a place that makes national news."

"No, I know it," he replied. "I think I was there once or twice."

"You've been to Korea?" Sidney repeated. "Mind if I ask why?"

"Actually, same reason as you, minus the draft part - they weren't drafting soldiers anymore by the time I turned eighteen. The Army still has a presence in Korea, as I'm sure you know. CID sent me there."

"You were Army Intelligence?"

The younger man nodded. "I didn't expect to be. I enlisted right out of high school because I wanted to do something with my life and I didn't have a whole lot of options. I couldn't even afford community college since any money I had had to support my mom as well as me. I expected to be doing grunt work. But my trainers in basic saw something in me and they fast-tracked me into Intelligence." He noticed, then, the expression on Sidney's face. "What? You look like you're trying not to laugh."

"Don't take this personally, it's just something someone said, a doctor from that unit I mentioned. He seemed to think 'Military Intelligence' was an oxymoron."

"No offense taken. Honestly, I can start to understand that position, at least with respect to some officers I dealt with in CID. Problem Number One was the intelligence guys who assumed they knew everything just because of where they worked, that they didn't need to learn or to question their own assumptions. There was one officer, I never met him personally, just read his notes, but he had tried to write them down in Korean - to show how smart he was, I guess. At any rate, I knew more Korean than most of the enlisted men, and the officers didn't want to deal with them, so they asked me to translate and analyze them in relation to a case, and let me tell you, this officer didn't know half as much Korean as he thought he did."

"How bad?" Sidney asked, clearly interested and amused.

"Well, all the words were technically correct, but his syntax was a mess. I basically had to translate it twice; first into intelligible Korean, then into English. And then once I could finally sit down and actually read it for content, he was incredibly paranoid - and that's not a word I use lightly. He assumed every unanticipated twitch was a sign of bad intent and every person he disliked or had ever argued with was a potential spy and traitor. I couldn't separate out what was a real concern and what was only a threat in his own mind. The notes were useless."

The older man was smiling. "This man's name didn't happen to be Colonel Flagg, did it?"

Bobby nearly dropped the coffee cup. "How -?"

Sidney looked stunned, then burst out laughing. "Wait, really? I was joking. It just sounded so much like him."

"Was he that bad in person?"

"Worse, possibly. He almost got me into a mess of trouble once. If Hawkeye and BJ hadn't figured out how to use his own paranoia against him -"

"What imaginary offense did you commit?" Bobby asked, now smiling too.

"I forgot to sign my loyalty oath," he admitted. "I swear, it was a mistake! But Flagg wanted to blow the whistle on me for it."

"So this Hawkeye and BJ..."

"Doctors at the 4077th MASH - the Uijeongbu unit I was talking about. Well, both of them had been drafted too, and were understandably unhappy where they were, which Flagg knew. So they immediately congratulated me on coming up with such a smart way to get out of the service - of course, the consequences if he'd actually busted me would have been a lot more serious, but he was a reactive type, didn't stop to think everything through. So he didn't report me, certain he'd foiled my plan, never realizing 'The Wind' had just been played like a violin."

"The wind?"

Sidney laughed again. "Sorry, that's what we started calling him after the Margaret Houlihan case." At Bobby's blank look, he quickly realized his mistake. "Sorry, I got so caught up in talking about the old days that I forgot for a minute you don't have any of the context I have. Major Margaret Houlihan was the head nurse at the 4077. One morning, the company clerk went looking for her to ask her a question about a chart, and a minor situation turned into a less minor panic when no one could find her."

"And Flagg showed up," Bobby surmised.

"Among other things, and he went full-on - well, full on _Flagg_, for lack of a better descriptor. He was just putting the final touches on his plan to bomb all of North Korea when Major Houlihan walked into the office wondering what all the fuss was about."

"Where had she been?"

"In the village, helping to deliver a baby. She told the sentry on duty but he'd been on night watch for a few days straight and when they first asked if he knew where she was, he was too tired to give a coherent reply. In the chaos, no one thought to ask him again once he'd actually gotten some sleep."

"So where does the wind come in?"

"Flagg liked to talk in a sort of flowery, flourished way. At one point, he referred to himself as 'the wind.' After Margaret was found, he insisted they all close their eyes so he could leave - they gave in because he refused to leave until they did. Upon which he threw himself through a window - as Hawkeye put it, 'The Wind' had just broken his leg. The 4077th called him 'The Wind' amongst themselves from then on, and since I was kind of an honorary member of the team -"

"Doctor Freedman?" An orderly walked up to them. "Your son is here."

"That's my cue." He stood. "It was nice to meet you, Bobby. I hope I see you around again soon."

**Yes, I had a lot of fun with this. In case I wasn't clear enough, this entire chapter is a flashback that takes place about a year and a half before the bulk of the story. I promise, it will be the only portion of the story that is non-linear.**

**This chapter references the M*A*S*H episodes _Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen_, _Quo Vadis, Captain Chandler_, and _The Abduction of Margaret Houlihan_ and the CI episodes _In The Wee Small Hours_ and _Endgame_.**

**Please review.**


	4. Chapter Four: The Doctor's Advice

**Improbable Cause**

**Disclaimer: **If you recognize it, it's not mine.

**_**Chapter Four: The Doctor's Advice**_**

"Doctor Freedman? There are some detectives here to see you. They're insisting it's urgent."

"All right, send them in." He had been planning to use the morning to catch up on some desk work, but if the police were coming to talk to him, it had to be serious. And the disconcerting thing was, he had no idea why the police would want to talk to him.

"Doctor Freedman, I'm sorry for the intrusion."

_That voice..._ He looked up, recognizing one of the detectives. "Bobby Goren." He stood, shaking the man's hand warmly. "I was so sorry to hear about your mother."

"I appreciated the flowers you sent," he said softly. "I think - I think she would have appreciated them."

"I meant to come to the funeral. I had a last-second crisis with one of my patients."

"I understand."

"But I take it you didn't come all this way to talk about your mother."

"No. Doctor Sidney Freedman, my partner, Detective Alex Eames." He gave them a moment to shake hands, then picked up the explanation. "Actually, we're here about another friend of yours. Margaret Houlihan."

"How - you remember Margaret's name from an offhand mention in a conversation we had more than a year ago?"

"That's what he does, Doctor Freedman," Eames chimed in.

"She's Margaret Pierce now, has been for fifty-two years, and she's a little out of your jurisdiction."

"We know," Goren replied. "But we think she knows something about a case that _is_ our jurisdiction. You've heard about that serial killer, the one who killed all those women?"

"Of course, every news station in the city is opening with it."

"The latest victim was a client of Ms. Houlihan's - I'm sorry, Mrs. Pierce's daughter," Eames explained.

"Lainie?" he replied. "I didn't know. I'm sorry to hear that, she takes her clients' welfare personally. But what does this have to do with Margaret?"

"We showed her a picture of our suspect." Goren took up the explanation again. "She identified him as her mother's ex-husband, Donald Penobscott, and told us he attempted to kill her mother in 1954."

"We pulled the file," Eames added. "It's a perfect match to the MO. Mrs. Pierce is the only person to survive one of his attacks. We know this isn't going to be easy on her by any stretch of the imagination, but we need to speak with her."

"You knew her," Goren finished. "You said you kept coming back to the unit where she was head nurse; you must have gotten to know her. We don't want to traumatize her any more than she already has been. We were hoping you could help us find a way to soften the blow of this as much as possible."

His expression grew very serious. "Sit down." He waited a moment until they did. "When you say it's not going to be easy on her - that may be the understatement of the century. I stayed close to Margaret and Hawkeye - that's her husband, Dr. Benjamin Pierce - after the war, and I visited her in the hospital while she was recovering from the gunshot wounds. She played strong, but she was horribly shaken by what had happened." He paused for a moment as if gathering his thoughts. "One thing I can tell you about Margaret, though - she _is_ tough, and she hates the idea of doing nothing. She didn't get to be an Army Major by sitting around waiting for things to happen. Part of the reason it was so hard for her to deal with what happened to her was that she had no control over the situation."

"So you're saying we need to give her back her control," Goren surmised.

"Exactly. Don't frame this as her just helping you out, make this a chance for her to take back control from her ex. It will hurt anyway - but it will also help."

"Thank you, Doctor." Eames stood.

"One more thing. I'm going to call Margaret, let her know you're coming. I'll let you explain the case but it'll be better if she has a chance to brace herself beforehand."

"Okay." Goren nodded. "Eames, would you mind giving us a minute?"

She'd worked with him long enough not to question his every move, even when she didn't quite understand. "I'll be by the car."

"Something else, Detective?" the psychiatrist asked.

"Not about this case. About my mother. You - I think you were right."

Sidney only nodded, waiting for him to elaborate.

"Something bad _did _ happen to her. I was - I was too young to remember. I know she wasn't able to deal with any more stress after they found out about the cancer, but I wish - I wish you had been able to keep working with her. Maybe she would have found some peace in those last months."

"So do I."

"I can - I can tell you about it sometime," he offered. "If you think it would help other cases."

"Only if you're all right with it. I know this sort of thing can be very difficult for the families. I hate the idea of forcing people to relive their own traumas, but it can be necessary for healing. Asking families to relive that - again, only if you're absolutely sure you're all right with it. Oh, and Detective?"

"Yes?"

"If someone has to go talk to Margaret about her trauma, I'm glad it's you."

xxxxxxxxx

"So he knew your mother?"

Goren nodded as he slid into the front passenger's seat. "He was a visiting doctor at Carmel Ridge. He was working with her before she got sick."

"And he offhandedly mentioned the name of our victim to you?"

"He knew her pretty well, you must have picked up on it. Actually, we were talking about someone else, a CID officer he knew and I'd heard of. Her name just came up. That's why he was so surprised I remembered."

"Whereas I'm used to it by now."

"Exactly." Pretty much every other partner he'd had before had been taken aback by that trait too. She had been at first, but she'd done what none of the others had - she'd stuck around long enough to get to know him.

"I called Ross while you were talking to Sidney. We're on the first flight to Portland out of LaGaurdia."

xxxxxxxxx

"You're sure you're okay with this?"

Margaret looked up at her husband and gave him a smile. A tiny smile, but a genuine one. "I'm sure."

"I know better than to try to talk you out of this," he said with a smile of his own. "I just don't like to see you hurt."

"Come here." She beckoned him close. "Yes, I'm scared. But you know what gives me the strength to do this?"

"I know. You want to show Donald you're stronger than he is, stronger than he gave you credit for."

"No," she replied. "I mean, I do, but that's not what I meant." She rested her forehead against his. "It's _you_, Hawkeye. I still remember how strong you were all those years ago when you took the stand against Monroe. That little speech you made while the defense attorney was trying to take you down - even scared as you were, you looked that man in the eyes and you called him out. You found that strength inside you. And remembering that, I can believe that I can find that strength in me too."

The memory of that experience hadn't really been a part of his life for a long time. He'd left it buried in a courtroom in Seoul, the courtroom where she'd been convicted and sentenced, rarely speaking of it and never again revealing it to someone who didn't already know. Even Trapper John and Radar O'Rielly, much as he trusted them, had never been told. But he would never forget, and niether would she. He leaned in even closer, clasping her hands in his. "All the strength I have is yours, Margaret. I give it to you."

She nodded tearfully and kissed him. As if on cue, the doorbell rang. He took her hand in his and together they went to answer it.

The two detectives that stood at the door were certainly a lopsided pair. The man was tall, taller than Hawkeye, possibly even taller than BJ Hunnicutt, and heavyset, imposing to say the least. He was probably twice the size of his petite partner, who barely stood at five-four even with heels.

She spoke first. "I'm Detective Eames, this is Detective Goren. Dr. Freedman told you we were coming?"

The older man nodded. "Come in."

"Maybe this would go more quickly if we interviewed each of you separately?" Goren suggested. "My partner can interview you," this he directed to Margaret, "and I could interview your husband."

Margaret nodded. "All right."

"Is there someplace we could talk in private?" Eames asked her.

Margaret led the detective into a side room, leaving the two men in the foyer. It was Hawkeye who spoke first. "I don't know how much I can help you. I only know what Margaret's told me, what she's probably telling your partner."

"I know."

"And I don't have a problem hearing about what happened to her. I mean, it hurts me, but I -"

"I know that too," Goren interrupted gently. "It wasn't you, it was me. I thought your wife might be uncomfortable talking to a strange man about this. What did Sidney tell you about the reason we're asking all these questions?"

"He told me about the serial killings, that you think Margaret's attack is connected to those murders."

Goren nodded. "It's the same MO exactly. Which has allowed us to pick up a few details that weren't in the file on Margaret." He watched the older man carefully, gauging his reaction to figure out what he was thinking. "We suspect she was raped. I'm sorry."

He swallowed. "I know," he said softly, though Goren didn't need the verbal confirmation to realize that. "She told me. Margaret and I don't have secrets from each other, certainly not of that caliber."

"She limps a little," Goren said softly, having observed the very slight unevenness in her gait as she crossed the room. "Is that from Donald?"

"Bullet shattered her hip," he said by way of an affirmative. "It doesn't show much, but it's there if you know to look for it - or if you're just unusually observant, which Sidney said you are. He put in a good word for you."

A portrait on the wall had caught his attention - a younger version of the couple with four girls around them. "You have a beautiful family," he commented. "The oldest girl, the one who looks about thirteen, that's Alaina?"

"How did you -"

"The woman I met has hazel eyes, like the oldest girl in the picture. All the other girls have blue eyes." He pointedly avoided mentioning that the parents also both had blue eyes or what that implied.

"Yes, Lainie's our firstborn. Then Betsy, Sarah, and Hannah. And three of them are at least two decades older than Margaret was when I met her, and Hannah will be there in a few years." He smiled a little. "Makes me feel old."

"Who painted it?" Goren asked. "It's good work. You hire a professional?"

"No, actually Margaret's and my old CO from Korea did it as an anniversary gift. He swore Alaina to secrecy and had her mail him a photo. It was one of the only color photos we had at the time and we both went a little crazy when we couldn't figure out what happened to it. Lainie's got a hell of a poker face, I never even suspected she knew anything." He smiled wider now at the memory.

"What about this one?" What he pointed to wasn't a painted portrait but a large print of a color photo that had to have at least thirty people in it. "Isn't that Sidney?"

"Yep, that was our 4077 25 year reunion in 1978."

"Your daughter looks pretty close with that blonde man," he observed, noticing that Alaina in this picture was leaning her head on the shoulder of the man in question.

"I should hope so," he replied with a smile. "That's Henry McIntyre, Alaina's husband. They'd been married for about two years by then."

"He looks like this man here," Goren observed. "Your daughter married the son of one of your Army colleagues?"

He nodded. "He wasn't just a colleague, he was my bunkmate. We stayed close and our kids kind of grew up together. Fun fact: Henry's mother is actually the sister of one of my other bunkmates from Korea, but those two bunkmates were never in Korea at the same time. They met by complete coincidence."

"You all must have been very close, to be able to get everyone together after so long."

"Oh, the stories I could tell you..."

"I think your wife and my partner will be busy for awhile, I'd be happy to hear one. Sidney was telling me about your tangles with Colonel Flagg, and I got the sense you had a lot of interesting stories."

"Oh, you want a Flagg story? You should hear what Charles Winchester did to him..."

xxxxxxxxx

"You know," were the first words out of Margaret's mouth as she closed the door. "You know what I didn't tell the cops back when."

Eames nodded. This woman wanted to be talked to straight-up, without sugarcoating. Alex could respect that; she was much the same way. "The five murders in New York appear to be a direct match to the MO he used when he tried to kill you. It's allowed us to...fill in a few of the blanks."

"You know that - that he raped me," she said softly. "That's why your partner sent you off with me while he stayed back to talk to my husband."

"That or he just thought you were uncomfortable with having him around. My partner has an uncanny knack for knowing what people are thinking. You never told the police that?"

"Off the record, detective?"

"Sure."

The woman was silent for a long moment, and when she began to speak, she didn't look at Eames. "I was gang-raped when I was seventeen. I reported it and pretty much right off the bat wished I hadn't. I couldn't go through that again. I was _married_ to him - I don't blame myself, but that's plenty of fodder for the 'she was asking for it' comments. When I first came to in the hospital, Hawkeye told me the police were looking at charges of kidnapping, assault, and attempted murder. I decided that was good enough and it would save me having to go through that."

Eames didn't press. "Tell me about Donald. How did you meet him?"

So Margaret told her the story, beginning with the party in Tokyo and the out-of-the-blue proposal. "I don't know why I accepted," she admitted, "except that I liked the fact that he was interested enough to propose. I'd been with a lot of guys after - after what happened to me, and for most of them, I was good enough for a fling, but not good enough for anything that involved commitment. I dated one man for awhile, but he was married, which of course he didn't tell me until after I'd fallen for him. He kept saying he _would _leave her, except - take your pick on 'except', it was always something. I was still coming off that relationship when Donald proposed. What I didn't realize at the time was that he wanted - I guess the easiest way to say it is that he wanted to be like the lords of old times. A wife to parade on his arm and bear his children and every woman he could ever want for sex. I found out pretty quickly that he was cheating, and I found out shortly after that that he didn't have any intention of stopping."

"When did he start abusing you?"

"Third day of our honeymoon," she said softly. "I'd been hanging out with an old friend - a _male_ friend - and he got jealous. But instead of coming to talk to me like most humans would, he just started beating me. He never even told me why he was mad; I had to run it by some of the guys at the 4077th - I just told them he stopped speaking to me - before I realized what I'd done to make him angry."

"And after that?" Eames prompted.

"Every time I saw him, he'd find something to get him angry. I tried standing up for myself, that just made him angrier. I tried submitting, that just encouraged him. Sometimes I felt like there was no way out." She swallowed. "But every time one of my 'vacations' ended and I went back to the 4077th, I was reminded that there _was_ more to my life than being his punching bag. We never lived together, and after we divorced and I got a chance to look things over in the cold light of day, I thanked God for that. I think that's a huge part of why I was able to leave him."

"Which brings us to 1954."

Margaret nodded and told Eames what had happened in the parking lot, the moment when she had realized who was holding a gun to her head, and the days of hell that had followed. "Then one time, instead of beating me, he stands up and he says 'It's been fun, Margaret, but we can't go on like this forever. And I'm not leaving you around to fall into bed with the next man who comes along.' And then he raised the gun."

"How did you survive?"

"I played him. I pretended to beg for my life which gave me an excuse to roll on my side and curl up; I tucked my arm under my body while I did. He bought the pleading, and while his guard was down, I used my arm to push myself up and then I just ran. He shot after me, but it was dark and it's always harder to hit a moving target anyway. He shot me and I fell, but he only hit me in the side and the leg, nothing fatal. He came over to check if I was dead - if he'd actually checked my pulse, there would have been nothing I could do, but he wasn't a doctor, he just kicked me, and when I didn't react, he assumed I was dead and walked away. I waited until I was sure he was gone, and then I crawled to the side of the road and flagged down a car." She paused, swallowed. "Does this help?"

"It might. Up to this point, everything we thought we knew about what happens between the abduction and the murder was conjecture and speculation. My partner's unusually good at that kind of thing, but the most educated guess in the world is still a guess."

"Is there any chance -" she stopped and then started over, as if afraid to hear the answer she expected. "I know he can't be tried anymore for what he did to me, but if you catch him, is there a chance I could testify against him anyway?"

Eames was momentarily stunned into silence. Even with everything Sidney had told them, she hadn't expected this. Testifying could be brutal, most victims went out of their way to avoid it, but the statute of limitations had absolved this woman of that responsibility and here she was, asking to do it anyway. "Are you aware of what that might entail?"

"Yes, I am. But I want him to look at me and know that, in the end, I'm coming out ahead."

****My muse has plenty more to go, but this is already the longest chapter in this story by quite a bit, so I'll put the rest in the next chapter so I can get this posted.****

****This story references the MASH episodes ******_**Rally Round the Flagg, Boys**_******, ******_**Margaret's Engagement**_******, ******_**In Love and War**_******, and ******_**Comrades in Arms **_******and the CI episode ******_**Endgame**_******.****

****Please review.****


	5. Chapter Five: A Sighting

**Improbable Cause**

**Disclaimer: **If you recognize it, it's not mine.

**_**Chapter Five: A Sighting**_**

"So, what did you learn from the victim?"

Much to their annoyance, Goren and Eames had arrived at the airport and gotten through security only to discover that their flight was delayed because the previous flight the aircraft was being used for was _also_ delayed due to the fact that the pilots had gotten stuck in traffic back in New York. Determined not to waste their time, they'd commandeered a corner and spread out their files, but they'd gotten off-topic.

"Perp's a narcissist, thinks he walks on water and every woman on Earth should be grateful if he deigns to give him the time of day. Fiercely, violently jealous, but repeatedly cheated on his wife and seemed to think this was the way things should be. I can't stand guys like that," she added almost as an afterthought.

If they'd been in the squad room, Goren probably would have let that last comment pass unremarked upon. But this was an airport, they had time to kill, and he felt more comfortable being informal with her here. "Speaking from experience?"

"Yes," she admitted. "There were one or two, especially once I entered the Academy. The old-boys' club mentality seemed to bring that out in them - not that they wouldn't have done it anyway, but it seemed to make them think it was okay, and there'd be five guys standing behind them in an instant if I tried to say they weren't being fair. I've never told you the story of how Joe and I got together, have I?"

In fact, it was fairly rare that his partner mentioned her late husband at all. "No, you haven't."

She smiled. "He was a year ahead of me in the academy. He stopped me in the hall and asked me to go on a date with him, and by then, I was so fed-up with guys at the Academy that I turned him down flat."

Bobby laughed a little despite himself. "And what? He kept pushing you until you gave in?"

She grew serious. "The opposite, actually. When I said no, he just accepted it and walked away. That was my first clue that something about him was different, so I watched him for awhile, and one of the guys I was talking about - well, people like that don't change, but the kicker was when he gave his girlfriend of the moment hell for _hugging_ another guy, and the two of them got into it and you could hear them on the next floor - anyway, the guy was getting some backup, and one of the guys tried to bait Joe into joining. So he stands there for a minute, looking like he's going to say something really deep, and everyone shuts up to hear it, and then he says 'well, I hear it's good for couples when one person starts picking up the other person's habits, but if all she was doing was hugging him, you have a ways to go'. The woman started laughing, I started laughing, some of the guys who'd been watching started laughing - anyway, I was so impressed that he stood up for her, and basically took the wind out of everyone's sails at the same time, that I decided I'd give him one chance, so I went up to him and I told him that if he didn't mind being asked out by a woman instead of vice-versa, we could go on a date. And - well, you know how it ended."

Bobby was laughing in earnest now. "He really said that?"

"To the letter."

He was silent for a few moments before returning to their original train of thought. "You see yourself in Margaret, don't you?"

"I should know better than to try to put anything past you, shouldn't I?" she said, but she was far more amused than annoyed. "Yeah, I see myself in her. It's not easy for women in jobs that are usually considered men's work, and even though women nurses were the norm by then, women in the Army weren't. She was surrounded by a bunch of men who all had the same kind of good-old-boy thing going as a lot of cops do. So, what does this tell us that might help?"

"First off, he's going to default to seeing male officers as more of a threat than female officers - more fool him, with you on the case," he added, smiling at her. "Between the two of us, you're the one who's actually shot someone. If it comes down to a confrontation, you should take point, he won't see you as a threat and you'll be able to get the upper hand on him more quickly. I'm likely to intimidate him because of my size and that would get his guard up. He may be an idiot and an aged one at that but the Army trained him; the last thing I want is a fight on my hands."

Eames nodded. "Agreed. So, did you and Dr. Pierce have a nice chat?"

Goren shrugged. "Sure. I got a few good Korean war stories out of him."

"Such as?" She gave him a look when he didn't answer. "Oh, come on, I'm bored."

"Well, have I ever told you about the weather in Korea?"

"No, why?"

"Suffice to say, it's brutal. Boiling hot in summer, bitterly cold in winter. This one story takes place in the summer, a particularly hot night even for Korea, which is saying something, and none of them can sleep. So the company CO finally gives in and takes a sleeping pill; meanwhile, the company clerk has decided to take apart the PA system to get some practice fixing it, the company second-in-command is sorting out his family's taxes because their accountant was just indicted, Dr. Pierce's bunkmate is stressing out over some chore that needs to be done back at his house in the States, Dr. Pierce is annoyed because his bunkmate keeps waking him up, and then-Major Houlihan is dealing with a heat rash in, ah, an unfortunate place. Got all that?"

Eames nodded. "So I take it something happens?"

"Well, a patient comes in on an ambulance, and considering his condition the doctors want him evacuated as soon as possible, which means they need to call for a chopper to come as soon as it's light enough to fly. But the only person who can send out that request is the company CO, who's conked out, so they have to wake him, and he's loopy from the sleeping pills. He makes the request with help from the clerk and goes back to bed. Maybe an hour later, the company second-in-command needs carbon paper, and the company clerk has had issues with people taking the carbon paper and has locked in the safe, which he doesn't have the combination for. The only person who knows the combination -"

"The company CO," Eames surmised.

"Got it in one. So the second-in-command goes to get the CO; meanwhile, the clerk is starting to worry because he's realizing he doesn't know as much about the PA as he thought he did. The CO opens the safe and goes back to bed, but Major Houlihan is assisting in surgery and hears that there's a chopper coming, and she realizes that she can get the chopper to bring the lotion she needs for her heat rash, but since everything in the army is streamlined, the only person who can requisition supplies -"

"I get the picture."

"So she goes and wakes him up _again_, and he's completely loopy. She takes him to the phone, which is in the same room as the PA, which the clerk has finally just about managed to get fixed. Meanwhile, Dr. Pierce's annoyance with his bunkmate and his bunkmate's frustration with being away from home have come to a head and they're shouting at each other. So Major Houlihan is trying to explain her situation, and the company clerk finally manages to get the PA fixed but is so excited he forgets to turn it off. The colonel starts rambling about what Margaret is telling him, while she's trying to keep her situation private, and since the PA is in the same room as the phone -"

"Oh, my God." Eames began laughing.

Goren nodded. "Dr. Pierce said it completely stopped his fight with his bunkmate cold. But the best part is, the Colonel woke up the next morning and didn't remember a thing! He couldn't figure out why Margaret was so mad at him. And was she ever mad."

"I bet she was. And by the way," Eames added, pointing out the window, "I think that's our plane pulling up to the gate."

xxxxxxxxx

"Captain." Goren barely got that out before falling silent, clearly listening to Ross talk. "Okay. Got it." He waved at his partner to get her attention. "Got it. Will do, Captain." He hung up the phone. "There's been a sighting."

"Where?"

He rattled off the address Ross had given him. "He was seen heading into a foreclosed house. Unis are sitting on it until we get there."

"How reliable is the tip?" Eames asked, already reaching over to switch on the dash light and the siren before she sped up.

"Credible, anyway. Enough that we can't afford to ignore it."

Eames nodded. "Call whoever's running the show down there. Tell them ETA in ten."

xxxxxxxxx

Eames and Goren had stopped outside the house just long enough to be brought up to speed and get suited up in bulletproof vests. Then, tailed by a dozen uniformed officers, they broke open the door.

At first, there was nothing but repeated shouts of "Clear!" echoing through the empty house. Then Eames pushed open a door and was faced with more than she'd been expecting. "I've got a basement!"

Her partner was behind her in an instant and four officers were there a few moments later. They proceeded slowly into the basement, flashlights held high to combat the darkness; the basement appeared to have almost no sources of natural light and the power in the house had been turned off long ago.

Goren's eye was quickly drawn to a door, and as he looked through it, he realized there might have been a mistake. "Hey - do we have eyes on the garage?"

"_Yes_," a voice replied through his radio. "_In any case, the garage doesn't adjoin the house, and we'd have seen him cut across the yard_."

By now, Eames was standing next to her partner. "Actually, not quite. The garage _does_ connect to the house, there's some sort of tunnel down here." She cued up her radio. "Dispatch officers into the garage."

The command was acknowledged, but hardly a minute later, Eames' radio crackled to life. "_We've searched the garage, Detective, there's no one here but us. If he was here, he must have escaped between when the call came in and when we got into position_."

"Copy that," Eames said frustratedly. " Damn it! Okay, stay put for now; if he hasn't already used that as an escape route let's not give him the chance now. Goren, you stay here, keep eyes on the search of the basement. Melvin, Jansen." She waved to two of the uniformed officers. "We'll check the passageway."

Goren nodded, still holding his flashlight high. All of a sudden, a voice sounded behind him. "Hey, you! Stop there!"

He didn't even have a chance to react before he heard a shot and then a bullet whizzed past his ear. He heard the echoing sound of metal on metal and then saw one off the officers fall, hit by the ricochet of the bullet that had just missed his head. Another quickly reached for his radio. "Ten-thirteen!" he called out. "Ten-thirteen! Officer down, repeat, officer down!"

"Stop there!" the first voice repeated. From the proximity, he had to guess it was meant for him.

He slowly raised his hands. "Okay, okay. Just take it easy. No one has to get hurt here."

"Police!" came Eames' voice from behind Goren, in the same direction as the stranger. "Drop the weapon!"

The next thing they heard was the sound of something hitting the floor; it appeared the suspect had obeyed Eames' instruction literally. Every cop in the vicinity winced and jumped back, but the gun thankfully didn't go off. Eames called out a second later, "I've got him!" and they all heard the click of handcuffs locking shut.

"Harrington!" one of the officers called out, rushing to the side of her downed partner. "You okay?"

"Vest took it," he groaned. "I'm gonna be sore as hell tomorrow, but no permanent damage. I can walk."

Two more officers surrounded their injured comrade as Eames, Goren, and the others marched the cuffed man up the stairs. As they came into the light, the man looked over at Goren and blinked in surprise. "You're not Penobscott."

Eames eyed the man she held with equal surprise. She didn't need to look at the picture to confirm. "Niether are you."

**So if it's not Penobscott, who have they got? Tune in next time to find out, but I did drop a hint or two!**

**This chapter references the MASH episode **_**No Sweat**_**. I'm aware that I basically novelized/summarized that episode, but it's one of my favorite funny episodes and I thought this story could use a little more MASH.**

**In regards to Eames' husband Joe, I know there are two main lines of thinking, one that says he was less than admirable as a husband (and presumably a boyfriend before that) and one that says he really was a decent guy. Despite being a fan of the Goren/Eames pairing, I tend to fall into the second camp - she loved him, he was good to her, he died young, and then she eventually comes to love her partner as well.**

**The "my flight got delayed because the aircraft was delayed on its previous flight because the pilots got stuck in New York traffic" thing actually happened to me, resulting in me getting stuck in Detroit for over three hours waiting on my connection. I wanted a reason for Goren and Eames to have a chat in an informal setting and a plane getting delayed seemed like a good way to do it, and I thought this was more interesting for delaying a flight than, say, a thunderstorm.**

**Please review.**


	6. Chapter Six: A New Deadline

**Improbable Cause**

**Disclaimer: **If you recognize it, it's not mine.

**_**Chapter Six: A New Deadline**_**

"So you found someone in the house, but it's not our guy?" Ross asked incredulously.

"Not even close," Eames replied. "About the same age but the similarities end there. As near as we can figure out, Penobscott must have escaped through the garage while the local precinct was still calling in the officers to set up the perimeter, and this guy was either already in the house or got in the same way."

"Got an ID on him, at least?"

"On a hunch, Goren ran his prints through the military database. Lieutenant Colonel Frank Burns, out of Fort Wayne, Indiana. He's in holding; Goren's on the phone with Fort Wayne, trying to get the rundown on this guy."

"But he is connected to Penobscott somehow?" Ross pressed.

"Looks that way. When we pulled him out of the basement, he looked right at Goren and said 'you're not Penobscott'. This is after he damn near shot him in the head. Goren seems to think this means they're not exactly on the same side."

"You said he almost caused an accident?"

"Oh, God," Eames groaned. "I heard the shot and the call over the radio, so I ran back to the basement and saw him with a gun on my partner. I raised my weapon and ordered him to drop the gun, and, well, he did. Literally. We're lucky it was a single-action and he didn't have it cocked when he dropped it."

"Has the man never taken a firearms safety course?" Ross asked incredulously.

"Apparently not, or he slept through it," a voice replied wryly, and both Eames and Ross turned to look as Goren stepped through the door.

"What've you got?" Eames asked.

"Well, it looks like this isn't his first mistaken identity incident. He was briefly held for psychiatric observation after chasing down two women, calling them both Margaret, engaging in strange behavior, and then following a general and his wife into a public bath. Report says he was seriously intoxicated, and once he sobered up he appeared to have regained his sanity. It appears this incident took place just after Margaret and Penobscott married - at the time, he served at the same unit she did. Fort Wayne is faxing us the records. Also, he's spent an inordinate amount of time and effort - much of it outside the hours of the paid workday - chasing down the attempted murder case against Penobscott, despite the fact that it's well outside the statute of limitations by now."

"Margaret did mention she'd been seeing a man just before she and Donald met - she implied it was someone from her unit," Eames put in.

"Get it from the horse's mouth," Ross put in. "Goren, do you think you can handle talking to him?"

Goren gave him an are-you-kidding look. "Of course, Captain." He exited the room with Eames in tow.

She waited until they'd closed the door before turning to her partner, a little incredulously. "'Can you handle talking to him?' Seriously?"

Goren shrugged. "He did shoot at me."

"_No one_ I know can stay calm in dealing with a situation that hits them personally as well as you can," Eames retorted. "This guy fired a single bullet near your head because he mistook you for someone I think we'd all like to take a shot at. Compared to some of what you've taken down..." She decided this wasn't the time to bring up the Brady case. "He'd have more to fear from me, after he nearly killed my partner."

"Can _you_ handle it?" he asked, turning the question back on her. "I want you in there with me."

"Really?"

"We're assuming right now that he tried to shoot me because he thought I was Penobscott. That says to me that this is personal. He liked Margaret, he may still. I can only sympathize with her, but you _empathize_, and that's a whole other level. We need to open up a dialogue with this man and that could help. A lot."

"Okay. Then I'm there."

Goren pushed open the interrogation room door. "Colonel Burns."

"I'm sorry," the man said immediately. "I wasn't trying to shoot you. I mean, I suppose I was, but it wasn't _you_, well, I guess I was, but I didn't know it was you, I thought you were -"

"Penobscott, I know," Goren interrupted smoothly. "Tell me about him."

"You don't know who he is? I thought you did."

With an almost inhuman force of will, Eames managed both not to roll her eyes and not to interrupt as Goren spoke again. "Of course we know who he is, but we've only known that for a few weeks. You've been on his trail for fifty years. Why the interest?"

In the most coherent answer he'd given yet, Burns replied, "He's the lowest form of human life."

"Because of Margaret?" Goren pressed. "We know you served with her. We know you cared about her. You were upset when she married Penobscott." He broke eye contact with the older man briefly, instead locking eyes with his partner.

Many people had remarked on the almost surreal connection between the pair. It served them well now. Without a word spoken, she knew exactly what he needed her to do. "Oh, please, Goren. I know his type. It's not about insight or love. He was upset about Margaret marrying Penobscott because it meant she chose someone other than him. She bruised his fragile ego, and he's hunting down Penobscott to get revenge on the man for taking what he thinks he should've had."

"Is that true?" Goren asked Frank, deceptively gentle. "Or are you doing this because you really do care?"

He glanced between the two detectives. "A - a little of both, I guess. Or I used to be one but now I'm the other." He fixed his eyes briefly on Eames. "At first, it was like you said. I was just angry about losing her. I tried to break them up but I only ended up bringing them closer together - it's a long story. And then I got drunk and made a fool of myself, and I went home to Fort Wayne and my wife divorced me. I stewed for a couple of years, blaming Margaret, Louise, Penobscott, everyone. Gave up medicine to take a desk job with the Army, because I felt like that was all I could count on. Then one day, someone gave me a memo putting all stateside bases on alert that Donald Penobscott was wanted for the attempted murder of Margaret Houlihan, and that if he tried to come onto the base, we were to arrest him and hold him until the proper authorities could have him extradited - her father knew a lot of higher-ups in the military, and so did our CO, so I guess they were responsible for all that. In any case it was like - it was like when you have a dream that makes perfect sense at the time, and then you wake up and suddenly realize it only made sense in the dream world your mind created. It was that level of realization. I suddenly saw that a woman I'd loved had married a monster and all I'd cared about was how it affected me."

"And that was when you started devoting your time to finding Penobscott?" Goren pressed.

He nodded. "I thought if I could catch him, bring him in, I could make it up to her somehow. But by the time I got the memo, he was gone, disappeared. I tried everything, every new technology that came out, but nothing. And then I heard that police in New York were looking for him. So I got the first flight out of Fort Wayne."

"How did you end up in that house?" Goren pressed.

He looked slightly abashed. "I told you, I've kept up with technology. I have a portable police scanner. I heard the report of the sighting and I happened to be close, so I slipped in while the police were setting up the perimeter, but he must've gotten away before I got there, I don't think he could've gotten past me. I stayed in the passageway until I heard people moving around the basement, then I slipped out. I could see silhouettes, but not details, in the light from the flashlights. You have a similar build to him," he told Goren. "About the same height."

Goren nodded, having already figured that.

"I didn't mean to shoot at all. It was an accident."

This time, Eames' irritation was genuine. "And then you dropped a loaded weapon five feet. Have you never taken a firearm safety course?"

"Should I have?"

"Let's get back to the issue at hand," Goren suggested before Eames could say what he knew she was thinking. "Penobscott. You've been chasing him a lot longer than we have."

"He's good," Frank commented. "I hate to admit it, but he is. He was a West Point grad, and even though as I recall he was in the middle of the pack, he must've learned _something_. I guess he's keeping up with technology too, if I'd outpaced him, I should've gotten some kind of lead by now."

The detectives shared a look. If that was the case, it seemed to support their theory. Penobscott really was losing his memory. He actually believed he was back in the nineteen-fifties, all the technological advances of the past half century forgotten.

"So, what's going to happen to me now?"

"I suggest you get yourself a lawyer. You'll be charged with assaulting an officer, but a good lawyer might be able to get you a suspended sentence on a plea bargain, if you really didn't realize you were shooting at a cop or in a room full of cops. We'll be in touch."

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"So you're right about Penobscott having his mind stuck in the wrong time. How does that get us closer to catching him?"

"I don't know yet," Goren replied, and his frustration at that fact was evident. "But everything's relevant. I just need to figure out how."

Another officer tapped on the office door. "Detectives?" She handed Eames a piece of paper.

The detective scanned it and her eyes went wide. "Well, whatever the relevance, we better find it fast. Missing Persons report. Theresa Braddock, twenty-eight, blonde, five-four."

"Last seen when?"

"Noon, leaving work on a lunch break. Lucky for her, her boss watches the news, and she's been around long enough they know she's reliable. When she was over two hours late coming back, they called the police."

"And since we put the local precincts on alert, they knew better than to give the standard 'wait a day' spiel," Ross surmised. "That means we've got a little under two days to find this guy before he has another body on him. Logan and Falacci closed the case on that judge's wife this morning; as of right now, they're on the Penobscott case too. Forget the standard interviews, family and so on, we already have a pretty good guess who's responsible and we don't have time to waste."

"Right." Eames nodded, looking to her partner. "For the moment, let's split up, we'll get more done. You go to the scene, talk to the last to see and start tracking down potential witnesses. I'll bring the others up to speed and then we'll head down and meet you there."

"I'll put out an APB for her and the car and talk to upstairs about a press conference," Ross added. "Go."

****Were you surprised?****

****This chapter references the M*A*S*H episode ******_**Fade Out, Fade In**_****** and the CI episodes ******_**Endgame **_******and ******_**Courtship.**_****** A little background for those who don't know CI, Brady was a serial killer Goren interrogated in an attempt to track down his unknown victims, who turned out to have raped his mother and possibly (later confirmed) to have been Goren's biological father.****

****Please review.****


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